Firestorm
Firestorm was a long time competitor on the UK robot-fighting show Robot Wars, featuring in Series 3-7, plus both series of Robot Wars Extreme. The team also entered with the less successful Groundhog in Series 2. In total there were five Firestorm robots built, but they were all essentially upgraded versions of the same basic machine. The rough design of the robot, which was reused for each one, was a wedge driven by two go-kart wheels in the base of the rear, minimizing ground clearance on the front, making it highly manoeuvrable and powerful and driving it at up to 12 mph. The 2-wheel drive did, however, create traction problems when pushing, especially against robots such as Storm 2 and Tornado. On the front surface of the robot was a front-hinged flipper mechanism which doubled as a self-righting mechanism. However, in 5 wars and 2 Extreme series Firestorm only needed to self right three times. The original robot had a slow lifting bar on the front, which was succeeded by a quicker panel flipper on the later four, with larger rams powered by a CO2 fire extinguisher and capable of lifting 25 stone. The original Firestorm also featured a hardened aluminium shell, a retracting spear weapon (similar to that of Cassius 2), a set of conveyor belts on the wedge and three separate motors; one from a lawnmower and one from a cordless drill all running at 36V. Another unique aspect was the active differentials to drive Firestorm as it had one 36V motor for forwards and backwards and a 24V motor to steer it left or right whereas most robots only had all four directions on one motor. Added in Extreme 2 was a steel strip to reduce damage taken and ground clearance at the front, which was made to be removable in Series 7 along with a rebuilt body-shell and a slightly faster flipper. Ironically, Firestorm's high clearance at the back gave it the advantage against most wedges, as it could have its front lifted up a considerable amount without suspending its wheels off the ground. Both the rear spike and conveyor belts were removed for Firestorm 2, which had an inverted paint scheme, a 3mm aluminium shell and had to swap for smaller batteries as it was overweight to begin with and replace the metal casters with plastic ones. This was updated over 3 months but reverted to the original for Series 5 with Firestorm 3, with a new aluminium chassis and 5mm aluminium shell but the transmitter was sometimes unreliable. The paint job remained the same until Series 7 but Firestorm 4 was completely rebuilt over 4 weeks. The pneumatics were once again re-vamped for Firestorm 5 in Series 7. The Firestorm robot was one of the most successful in Robot Wars history, holding the record for the most battles ever won in the main competition, reaching five consecutive semi-finals. It reached the Grand Final in Series 3, 5 and 6, finishing in third place on each occasion. Consequently, Firestorm was never seeded lower than 7th (except for the Third Wars which had no seedings). It was also the only robot that was able to flip over Mr. Psycho, and broke several records - its very first battle stood as one of the quickest for several years, and its final victory against Mute allowed it to take the record of most Out of the Arena flips from Chaos 2. However, despite this huge amount of success, the team only won one official honour in its history; the Commonwealth Carnage Championship in Extreme Series 2. Whilst lacking in destructive weaponry, Firestorm's success was largely due to the driving skill and tactics. Its driver, Graham Bone, was regarded as one of the best drivers in the UK competition. Firestorm's trademark tactic was to drive an opponent up against the arena wall, and flip it against the side-barrier so that it couldn't self-right. This tactic served Firestorm well throughout its entire Robot Wars appearance, Facet falling foul to this tactic in the second round of Series 3, the last being Mute in Series 7, and many others in between, including the Grand Champions of series 2, Panic Attack. Graham Bone expanded this tactic in the later series, using the reverse wedge at the back of the robot to allow Firestorm to lever its front up onto the arena wall, and use its flipper to topple an opponent over the wall and out of the arena. This was done by a castor at the front so the robot could 'rear up' and 'shove' its opponent out of the arena. Category:Non-fictional Robots Category:TV Robots Category:Remote-Controlled Robots Category:Robot Wars